Making Baby Raccoons of Us All

Poetry by Jonathan H. Scott

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Jonathan H. Scott was born in Virginia and resides in Alabama. His writing has appeared in a variety of literary journals, most recently Drunk Monkeys, Floodwall, Poet Lore, and Unsplendid.

Beyond a deliberate attempt to match the precarious situation of our vulnerable young heroes with wobbly blank verse, there is nothing especially recondite to parse in these lines. In fact, the most notable poetizing going on here is a bit of mundane confessionalism. So by way of apology for this nearly-always unsatisfying sort of explication, two confessions more: 1) Whereas it is true that I am an inveterate “nature” poet and these like-me's are indicative of this penchant, I am obsessively loath to insinuate (much less name-drop "poetry") in my poems as I have done here. 2) The shotgun man is not the neighbor; the reports come from distant pastures, could just as well be those of a rifle for all I know, and adult coyotes are the more likely targets. So one apology more: Sorry, neighbor.

It’s just like me to bring a book outside

Where I know a pair of baby raccoons

Are dozing in the elbows of tree limbs.

A book of poems—so I won’t regret

Losing a plot when I look across

The creek where the raccoons wait for nighttime.

It’s just like me to suppose they are waiting

For nighttime and not for me to go back

Inside. But I am being very still now.

And quiet. And I have no gun. Unlike

The neighbor whose midnight furies

Have us all up our trees and trembling.

That’s big-time like me—making innocent

Baby raccoons of us all, everyone

But the shotgun man who, like the raccoons,

Is waiting for me to go back inside.